Bed of Nails
by Winter Manifesto
Summary: Carrion's nightmares... he likes to set them free on people. He likes to manipulate them while they sleep, while they're unconscience. There's nothing you can do until you wake up... Candy thought she knew her purpose. Then she woke up.


**Title: Bed of Nails**

**Rating: T**

**Disclaimer: Recognize it? Match it to the disclaimers that apply. **

**Summary: ****"Carrion's Nightmares… they don't always tend to keep to themselves. He likes to set them free on people; he likes to manipulate them while they sleep, while they're unconscious, while they're out of it. There's nothing you can do until you wake up." Candy thought she knew her fate – she wakes up and realizes she was severely misled. Carrion/Candy. Slight AU**

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**First fic. Strangely inspired. Enjoy.**

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**I could have changed the world we're in… by dragging knives across your skin…**

**-o-O-o-**

Candy Quakenbush had a purpose.

This revelation was enough to inspire a silly grin to brighten her face as the spray of salty sea dusted her skin from the force of a wave slapping against her awkward shape. She laughed while enjoying the feel of her heavy clothes pasting to her chilled skin. What made this moment better was it was close to the soon-to-come victory her and her friends were sure to have for it was her _fate_ to win.

And Candy had been enlightened on her fate, so this – her winning – was a fact. There was no losing, because that meant destruction, chaos, things that good stories don't end with. Even if she hadn't met up with the Fantomaya she would still be assured with her triumph in the war of Night versus Day.

How couldn't she be? After all, Day had her – the girl from the Hereafter who kept proving to be some sort of a teenaged heroine. Day had Princess Boa – royalty that had been more revered by the people than anyone before her. Day had Mishief and his seven brothers (John Fillet, John Sallow, John Moot, John Drowze, John Pluckitt, John Serpent, and John Slop) who were great thieves and were as interesting to eavesdrop on as they were to watch. Day had Malingo, the orange geshrat who had risen above the cruelty and hardships life had dealt him and was on his way to making the islands a better place. Day had so many countless heroes, so manystrong allies, so much _unquestionable_ hope.

Night was so ill compared to its opposing islands. It seemed it had all its possible success rested upon the frail Mater Motley and her twisted grandson Christopher Carrion – Prince of the Midnight Island.

Candy's laughs collapsed in her mouth as she shut it abruptly.

"That's wrong," she told the wind, who carried the words to her ear in a low gust. "Carrion is… probably dead." A large tide smacked her backwards through the surface of the water the moment the last word slipped from her mouth. Her head buzzed, but she was alert enough to climb through the water and make her way back to shore.

"_I should be more careful_," the other worldly girl thought to herself as she scanned the waves and beach around her for good measure. "_I shouldn't go too far out in waters here… or any island for that matter."_

"_You have more to fear than just the waves," _her 'sister' lightly reprimanded. "_You can't take any situation lightly. If anything were to happen to you – to us, sister – Abarat may be lost in the Night forever."_

"_I know, I know!"_ Candy cried out in her head, her tone had an edge of annoyance she couldn't hide from Boa. She sighed and pushed her head into the palm of her hand, tugging on her frayed bangs with her fingers. "That was out of line," she said aloud. "I'm sorry."

"_No, no, you had every right to snap a bit," _Boa said softly, her image standing with a prim and untouchable elegance from the inside of Candy's closed eyes. "_You've been under quite a lot of stress lately, haven't you?"_

"_Why do you have to ask? You know it's true – ah, sorry! I'm sorry!"_

Boa's light, airy laugh filled the darkness surrounding her and Candy felt warmer inside. "_I understand that you can't control what you think. Please don't think so little of me as to judge you or feel anger towards you for thinking what comes naturally. I know I can't control my thoughts, so I wouldn't expect you to."_

A pause. Candy nodded slowly with her palm still pressing to her face and her eyes clamped shut. "Why… why can't I hear your thoughts, but you can hear mine?"

"_I couldn't say."_

"You couldn't say?" Candy repeated. "Of course. The princess has a perfect answer for everything. You can't even say 'I don't know' it has to be –" Candy bit her tongue. "Ugh, I'm doing it _again_!"

"_It's al-"_

"No, it isn't!" Candy said, her eyes snapping wide open to look at her surroundings instead of the concerned look Boa was giving her. "You're my friend – you're like my sister. Heck, you and me are stuck together and I shout at you when you try to be nice? I don't want to be like that! I don't want to hate you for no reason!"

Another pause. "No wait, I don't mean that – I don't hate you…"

"_No, you don't," _she confirmed. "_Would you mind if I gave my thoughts on the matter?"_

"Go for it."

"_Well, Candy, it seems to me that you get emotionally chaotic like this whenever Carrion enters into your thoughts. And he's been doing it more so ever since his… assumed passing."_

Candy wiped her hand down and completely off her face. Her arms hung loosely at her sides as if completely deflated. Her eyes fell to the moist sand under her calloused feet. She played with it for a moment – sinking he toes between it and raising them back up again. "I think… you're right… Is it because I feel guilty? I did play a big part in his death. Lordy Lou, we don't even know fer sure if he's dead or not, right?"

"_No, you did nothing of the sort," _Boa said softly. "_He was… a bad man. He was a sick man. He was evil. It wasn't your fault he died – or may have died; it was his for breaking so many people and doing so many horrible things. It was not you who killed him, it was not his grandmother who killed him, it was not me who killed him – he killed himself. Even if he's alive, we won't see him the same way, so he really would be dead in a sense."_

"Candy?" The Hereafter girl's mismatched eyes widened as they froze onto the light eyes of Finnegan. He was ways away and couldn't have possibly heard her mutterings to her sister, but Candy felt flushed with embarrassment all the same. Her heart thumped and she wondered if it was because of Boa's excitement to see the man of Night and Day or hers.

With his expert eyes it was easy to find her in the dim setting and amble over to her in a walk that looked well practiced down an invisible path to her. He stopped a few feet away and bent down to look at Candy properly. "Well?"

Candy felt confused. "Well what?"

"Well… what are you doing out here in a time like this?" He laughed richly and Candy sighed. Good, so he _wasn't_ mad or ready to go off into a long rant about how irresponsible she is for wandering away by herself. "C'mon back, you're soaked! No wonder you always get tangled up in the adventures your friends love to talk about – you go looking for trouble."

"It's just water," she said numbly as he dragged her under his thick muscles of his arm and into his side. Her (or Boa's) heart sped up.

"Yes, and there are just countless species of dragons among the other sorts of nasty volatiles that live in it." He gave her a playful half smirk. "I would know; I've gotten into a few scuffles myself."

Candy nodded lamely, too busy working with Boa to imagine what sort of 'scuffles' it was that the brave dreadlock-wearing man got himself into – and more importantly trying to imagine how he got _out_ of them. Both were ended in his favor, of course, and somehow both cases also ended with him shirtless.

Candy held back a gag – she didn't feel this way for Finnegan, she knew this. She didn't want to touch him romantically or go off and steal kisses from him or hear his opinions on every topic there was to have an opinion on. No, this was Boa's doing. Boa wanted him. He was her true other half. And the poor girl was stuck with Candy, the Minnesota native who grew up in a town named for the slaughter of chickens... Did her life take a wrong turn or what?

"What's got you looking so low, huh?" Finnegan nudged her. Then his eyes melted and his voice dropped, "Or are you talking to… Boa?"

Great, he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. It's too bad that this teenage girl was in their way. "I was just thinking… is there a way to give Boa her _own_ body? Give her the life she never got to finish back?"

"_Oh Candy," _Boa said quietly, delicately placing her soft fingertips on her rosy lips behind Candy's blinking eyes.

Finnegan gave her a strange look. "You don't like Boa?"

"What? No, not at all! She's great, really," Candy insisted, hating how she could sound so fake when she was speaking the truth. "That's the thing, though. It's not fair for her to be in me, you know? I want her to be happy."

"But how can she _not_ be?" Finnegan asked innocently. "The Islands are going to be united soon. Things will be as she had wanted them to be – peaceful, safe. Night and Day will be equal."

"Are you forgetting the fact she's stuck in me and that she can't… you know… love you?"

Finnegan smiled grimly. "As far as I am concerned, you both are two different people. I like you, so I know she likes you, so I know she isn't upset sharing a body. And as for her loving me, I _feel_ it from her. There are times, did you know, that when you look at me it's not really you I'm seeing – it's _her_." His smile turned sweet and he looked up at the dark sky. "That's enough for me."

Boa was delighted to hear this. Her voice was reverberating through Candy's head saying all sorts of things at once. "She's happy," Candy decides to tell him, "to hear you say that."

**-o-O-o-**

Islands away at Gorgossium – or hours away at midnight – Mater Motley was staring out of a large, glossy window into the red ribbons of mist that hung around the towers of Carrion Castle. Her pinprick eyes shivered over the darkness of the island through the glass as if looking for something…

She paused, more feeling the presence of what she sought after rather than seeing it herself. Her back cracked and her wrinkles tightened as she stood upright as best she could. She turned around slowly with tremors shaking her rag-doll form. "Come out, you coward," she crowed to the dark corners of the hallway she was in.

One corner's darkness stretched out before the elder and it started to mold into a figure that towered over her. Once the model was made, the shadow peeled off the form and slowly back to where it belonged. The darkness revealed a tall man who exuded power and pride as much as he did waywardness and wickedness. He was angular and had definition cut into him from years of working away at his twisted thoughts and creations. His shoulders were broad and supported a large tank of crystal-like glass that came up to the bridge of his nose and was brimming with a dark orange liquid that had neon-green spirits swirling freely in it.

Mater Motley's eyes creaked thin. "Grandson," she said bitterly, disliking the taste of the word in her aged mouth.

Though she recognized him as such, he did not look how he did when his life had come to its end. For one thing his pale grey skin and the rainbow-tinged blotches on it became a completely healthy light-grey tone and had a silver tint to it that made him seem almost like a humanized star. The angles and ridges in his face were roguish and handsome with not a wrinkle or stress line to be seen. His hair was grown in and sparkled like the Hereafter's midnight sky and the obstructive tubes linking the back of his skull to his nightmares disappeared.

The only things that stayed the same were his calloused hands, his black eyes with glowing white irises, and the scars around his lips from a memory painful enough to make him a sadist. And, of course, he still had his signature glass to frame his face filled with an outlandish glowing stew. What looked to be the living neon tails from rats dipped in radiation swam around the bowl like lost worms.

Mater Motley looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. "What _is_ this place?" she spat.

"It's Carrion Castle," this Carrion look-alike claimed. "Although I made a… _few adjustments _on it, just I had done with myself, with you, with _a lot_ of things." He tilted his head a bit so the lobe of his ear was dipping into the nightmare's lava, the liquid stirring as he moved. "You see – you aren't real. Well, not real here anyways." His lips twisted into a dangerous smirk that only a murderer could wear. "Though you're real enough to scream, feel pain – to beg for mercy."

"Watch what you say, boy," the oldest Carrion warned, her voice shaking in defiance and authority.

Carrion rolled his eyes and he walked. His loose black silk of his cloak made bolts of static rise from his dark shirt and pants as he moved forward. "I don't have to." He jabbed a finger to his scarred lips and his eyes flashed. "You seem to enjoy doing it for me."

She said nothing. To acknowledge him would be to get defensive and Mater Motley was by no means in need of a defense.

He brought his long finger down and stretched it over his heart. "It seems that I'll have to be ending this nightmare soon. My angel and her _vessel_ are getting too close to what they deem to be a 'happy' ending." His eyes narrowed at his grandmother. "Though I wouldn't mind teaming with them for a moment if it means taking your life just as you ruined mine, you filthy hag."

**-o-O-o-**

_**W.M. **_**– A bit of a cliffhanger, but it was more an introduction than anything. Chapters will be longer of course, but I had to set the scene. Obviously, since this is written before the third book comes out (can't wait all the same for it) it bears no relevance to it, of course. I'm completely stemming this off of the second book. The other supposed three to be coming out will most likely not bear much resemblance. And I also doubt Carrion would change so much, too. But it wouldn't be fanfiction if I didn't get to mutilate plots and such with my own. Feedback is appreciated, of course.**


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